This chair’s story begins beside a burn pile at a small sawmill just outside Kansas City, Missouri. Hidden beneath layers of dust and rough-sawn edges was a forgotten stack of maple, destined for the flames. But something about it caught my eye — a subtle shimmer beneath the surface — and I decided to roll the dice and bring it home.
 
I’m glad I did. Once shaped and sculpted, the wood revealed an extraordinary tapestry of character unlike anything I’ve ever worked with. The spalting — a natural process that occurs when certain fungi colonize a fallen log — leaves behind intricate black boundary lines and painterly color shifts that feel almost otherworldly.
 
Here, soft whites melt into warm honey yellows, which deepen into rich browns and finally erupt into dramatic inky veins. The back braces feature a two tone design with a walnut front for contrast, but a matching maple on the back. Every surface is alive with organic movement, as if the tree’s history is still telling its story through grain and color.
 
To this day, I haven’t found another piece of lumber with this much soul.